Re: Ruby changes for Wheezy

[Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org>]

Le vendredi 04 mars 2011 à 11:16 +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit :
> === Use alternatives to switch between Ruby implementations ===
> There is a huge demand (see
> [[http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=548917|#548917]])
> for using alternatives to switch between Ruby implementations. This
> would provide a way to mimic what RVM provides in a cleaner way, and
> will help the Ruby community with moving to 1.9.x or other
> implementations.

I think this would be asking for a disaster. A given version of the
distribution should provide a given version of /usr/bin/ruby. Otherwise
you’re just going to see third-party software (and often Debian
packages) break in horrible ways.

Let’s say for example that a script has a #!/usr/bin/ruby shebang, and
uses the foo module. The package Depends: ruby, ruby-foo. In turn, this
will pull ruby1.8-foo.
Now let’s say someone installs it and then installs ruby1.9.1, and
selects it as the default ruby version. Now ruby1.9.1-foo is not
installed and you’re doomed.

In short: just because many people ask for it doesn’t mean it’s a good
idea.
>  * pure-ruby libs must produce a single binary package named
> '''ruby-foo'''
>  * libraries with both pure-Ruby and native code must be handled like
> this:
[snip]

Looks correct to me, but it would probably be easier to do like with
Python: put everything in a single package, de-duplicating data between
versions. This way transitions are much smoother.

-- 
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